Five years ago we bought an old house in San Francisco with a fig tree. We tore the walls down but kept the tree. Months turned into years - very cold years - but we are finally putting the house back together. Thanks for visiting.

a small treasure…

Ever since we bought our home a few months ago, we’ve been hoping for a secret stash of something. Cold hard cash would be nice; a pile of human bones, not quite. The house has been around for quite a while so it is not completely insane to believe that at some point in its nearly 85 year history that someone could have buried a little treasure. On Sunday, Joe found a treasure.

While Joe was busting up a workbench in our garage, he noticed one of the wood planks was loose so he tugged on it. He then found a small cigar box covered in dust. The strange thing was that the workbench had no drawers of any kind, either on the front or the back. Whoever hid the cigar box had nailed it shut. It’s lucky Joe actually found it.

Inside, he didn’t find cash but another kind of treasure; photographs, handwritten letters, official bank notes, and receipts. He even found a letter from the New York Police department regarding a death. All of the contents dated back to the turn of the century. Much of what we found is unreadable (by us) because it appears to be in a Cyrillic language, not sure if it’s Greek or perhaps even a Slavic language.

We would love to go through the box and understand a little more about what it might be and why someone would go to such lengths to hide it. However, this brings up an interesting question. If you own a very old home and find something of value – cash, antiques, or a box of treasures like this – what do you do? Would you notify the previous owner?